I could call this “knowing your place.”
The Chairman has control over appointing the Director of Football and Technical Director. The Dof is in charge of all youth or reserve transfers and contract. The TD is responsible for all staff appointments and contracts. The Chief Scout is responsible for all scouting assignments.
Your job is to make the best out of what they give you.
I’m doing it on a Scottish journeyman save and I’m at Hearts at the moment. The big thing is that you really have to buy into the club culture as the rest of the staff will be geared towards it.
It’s working well at Hearts but wasn’t a great fit at Dundee United. They had “defensively solid football” in their culture so were hiring coaches and scouting players to fit into that, where I’m more into attacking football.
I seem to be OK as long as the playing style is similar. Most of them have a Control Possession style but I think there’s a couple of Tiki Takas and Gegenpressers in there
I like this one. I tried to go one step further by having the DoF sign players and sort out contracts but they're so bad at it it almost killed my save
Haha I thought about this, but the idea of terrible squad management and the way the game punishes you for decisions that weren't yours makes it unappealing.
Two challenges I failed
Use only Scottish players at Rangers. In my defence the greatest Argentine striker you've ever seen came through my academy. Still a fail but the best fun.
Chase the money. I've been trying to do this for over a decade and I just can't. Its simple if you get offered more money then you have to leave. I get too attached.
The second one always ruins my attempts at a journeyman game. I always get too attached to the random national league north side I took to league 2 or something like that
I'd say that the 1st isn't a fail really, the Striker came through the academy and would probably qualify for the National Team. Same as how even though Iñaki Williams is Ghanaian, he can still play for Bilbao because he trained in the Basque country.
It was a fail of the original aim of the save to build the hardest, toughest tackling team you have ever seen. Not set out to collect cards but to win through physical brutishness.
Jorge changed everything, he was the silkiest mofo you've ever seen who played best as a DLF on support with an AF ahead of him. This meant i now needed to actually possess the ball, not have a big lump up front and have midfielders who could pass a ball.
I only sign players that seem realistic for my club. So If the philosophy of the club irl is signing young players, I do that as well.
I also stay away from wonderkid lists. I personally think buying 11 wonderkids isnt fun.
Yeah, this is a good one. I avoid wonderkid farming for sure. It's such an immersion breaker. I generally tend to avoid having a huge list of loan farmed players. I prefer at minimum sticking to players that'll make the bench straight away.
Using the no foreign limit mod, I tried to win the Eredivisie/CL with Feyenoord with Caribbean players only.
Don’t ask me how it went.
I wanna try to win with all Africans on a PL team next
I always try to develop one or two academy players per season, plus another couple of nation players. E.g atm I'm doing an Aberdeen save, so my LB and Bench CB are from the academy, and my striker and bench AM are both Scottish.
Yeah, this is something I always like to bring. Youth players on the bench is a great practice. Anyone with good potential, I love to get game time. It's more effective than a loan imo.
It varies from save to save but a few go-tos:
1. Nation restrictions, playing as Wrexham but only allowing Welsh player signings (with the exception of academy newgens).
2. Not allowing myself to loan in players, especially in lower league saves.
3. Only allowing myself to sign players found by my scouts, no player search engine and no targeted scouting except for players that have played against me in matches.
4. This isn't really a restriction but I do saves in smaller nations, usually Finland, where my goal isn't necessarily to win the Champions League but to find, sign and develop as many young high potential Finnish players as possible and sell them off to bigger clubs with the goal of developing the national team (without controlling the national team). This is a very immersive way to play imo and it's not just about beating the match engine. Usually I pick the buyer more based on how much playing time and further development they get as opposed to how much money I'll make.
2. The no loans on a lower league save is an interesting handicap. Loans really do make so much difference. I exploit it hard on the current lower league save I have going.
3. This is a pretty big handicap too. I've been exploiting player search and trials so hard in that save. I guess it does trivialise things - in that save, there's a chance I'm getting double promoted.
4. This one seems like a cool save concept. I should try this with Australia. I love the idea of helping develop the nation. Making sure a transfer is actually good for a player is something I might do more in general - I get sad when I sell a player and they rot on the bench.
I only really play in smaller nations, so they're mostly homegrown-related to keep from shorting myself in Europe once I get to the point where players are only really sticking around for three or four years before wanting out/getting sold.
Backup players homegrown in nation, backup goalkeeper homegrown at club, etc. Nothing too far out there.
I only sign players that naturally appear on my scout reports.
I also only sign players over 20 if they go straight into the first team. If they aren’t going straight in they need to be either trained in nation or trained at club when make it to the first team.
This is more just a habit I've fallen into managing almsot exclusively smaller clubs outside of the top 7 leagues, but never ever spending more than 15-20 million on a player, and usually staying under 5 million, unless theyre like a once in a save talent. I am currently at a tycoon takeover celtic in my journeyman save and despite having 160 million in the transfer budget i still operate on a surplus every year making the tycoon basically useless 😭. I also keep a very tight wage structure for all of my teams, usually maxing out absolutely at 5 million per annum, 10 million if I'm in a top 5 league.
Chelsea save. I set a restriction that I had to turn a 100 million profit in player sales every year until 2030 (which is when the amortization period for Boehly era transfers ends) and only buy U-25s. Was quite fun, I had to go budget hunting for elite young talent because the rest of the team was stacked with potential. There was a cheap workaround however as I would just sell Sterling/James/Chilwell for 80+ million to Saudi Arabia. By the time 2030 came, I had a 500 million transfer budget and nothing to spend it on as all the kids Boehly(and later me) bought were in their primes
Ooh, this is kind of what I've had in mind for this one. I like the idea of running at a profit. I've been running financially irresponsibly far too much, in previous saves. I love the idea of needing to be overall profitable.
One of my goals with this save is to upgrade everything at the club - best facilities, best staff. Have you started requesting upgrades at your club? It could help. You could maximise almost everything.
I currently play with Alaves and can only sign basque and spanish players. And can"t sign a basque players from other basque clubs in first division. Just if they are on transfer list.
Im in 28/29 season and i really love slow progress without south american wonderkids. Played once in conference league, three times in europa league and once in CL and slowly catching the gap to Real and Barca. Didnt win nothing yet 😂
And no save scumming.
Guys, I am trying a "players from nation only" save in Portugal and I am really confused how so many people find this fun.
The vast majority of summers there is no-one to sign so you might as well holiday for 2 months. There just aren't enough players to consider.
Isn't the scouting and finding regens half the fun? The only nation good regens that appear are from my rival clubs and they won't join ever.
Every year my team assembled in the first season is getting older and older and apart from 2 or 3 kids from the youth team there won't be enough players from this nation to replace the starting 11.
Outside of places like Spain/France/England/Germany where at least you can nab a lot of regens on youth-intake day I am not sure how to make such a save even remotely fun.
I’d like to imagine I’ve got a very strong youth policy. After my first season, I aim to give at least 1 u21 player a go in every continental match, 3 u21’s players an appearance (either starting or on the bench) in league games , and at least 7 in cup games (all of which excluding finals, key matches).
In my Hartlepool save (club chosen fairly randomly), I can only sign Scandinavian players (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic). Club regens were okay to sign (or it would have been nearly impossible) but I would generally sell them for revenue.
Very easy to sign good players in the national league as there are very few restrictions. Danish and Norwegian leagues are full of good young prospects who don't require particularly high salaries.
Got difficult in the football league. Had to make good use of affiliate clubs and dual-nationality players. Ended up in the prem after about 10 seasons but went straight back down.
Tried to like an 'equality' save, wherein every player would earn the same wage. Gave up within a season when I realised I would rather have good players, but could be fun for someone better than me, if possible
I always play with Director of Football challenge and the following rules/restriction:
- i'm responsible for training, tactics, match and first team coaching staff
- DoF/Technical Director is responsible for all other backroom staff
- DoF and Head Scout are responsible for scouting
- all contract and transfer negotiations are handed to the DoF. I just confirm transfers because the AI sometimes does very weird stuff
- i can just ask the DoF to hire players that are on the loan/transfer list or that my scouts found by themself. Or my DoF recommends to me. No imported shortlists and no searches for bargains or player in general that i know from other savegames
You will still hire from the same pool of players over all savegames. Because good players are good players and your scouts will always find them. But it's very random when your scouts find them and often you'll find them when they aren't affordable anymore.
It makes the game more realistic and you have to operate on a tighter budget even when having the same budget like when doing everything yourself. Because the AI can make good deals but of course doesn't know all the little tricks we human managers know.
I could call this “knowing your place.” The Chairman has control over appointing the Director of Football and Technical Director. The Dof is in charge of all youth or reserve transfers and contract. The TD is responsible for all staff appointments and contracts. The Chief Scout is responsible for all scouting assignments. Your job is to make the best out of what they give you.
Which team you’re playing that at ? Could be very fun just like being a complete nightmare
I’m doing it on a Scottish journeyman save and I’m at Hearts at the moment. The big thing is that you really have to buy into the club culture as the rest of the staff will be geared towards it. It’s working well at Hearts but wasn’t a great fit at Dundee United. They had “defensively solid football” in their culture so were hiring coaches and scouting players to fit into that, where I’m more into attacking football.
Is it important to match your coaches preferred formation to what you play?
I seem to be OK as long as the playing style is similar. Most of them have a Control Possession style but I think there’s a couple of Tiki Takas and Gegenpressers in there
I like this one. I tried to go one step further by having the DoF sign players and sort out contracts but they're so bad at it it almost killed my save
Yes, the “Head Coach” save. It’s a bit too far for me.
I do this as well, best way to play imo. Outside of adding specific transfer targets, let the business people do the business imo.
Haha I thought about this, but the idea of terrible squad management and the way the game punishes you for decisions that weren't yours makes it unappealing.
Two challenges I failed Use only Scottish players at Rangers. In my defence the greatest Argentine striker you've ever seen came through my academy. Still a fail but the best fun. Chase the money. I've been trying to do this for over a decade and I just can't. Its simple if you get offered more money then you have to leave. I get too attached.
The second one always ruins my attempts at a journeyman game. I always get too attached to the random national league north side I took to league 2 or something like that
I'd say that the 1st isn't a fail really, the Striker came through the academy and would probably qualify for the National Team. Same as how even though Iñaki Williams is Ghanaian, he can still play for Bilbao because he trained in the Basque country.
It was a fail of the original aim of the save to build the hardest, toughest tackling team you have ever seen. Not set out to collect cards but to win through physical brutishness. Jorge changed everything, he was the silkiest mofo you've ever seen who played best as a DLF on support with an AF ahead of him. This meant i now needed to actually possess the ball, not have a big lump up front and have midfielders who could pass a ball.
I only sign players that seem realistic for my club. So If the philosophy of the club irl is signing young players, I do that as well. I also stay away from wonderkid lists. I personally think buying 11 wonderkids isnt fun.
Yeah, I always do that. Like even in something like the Bundesliga just about no team would buy an 18 year old from Colombia, let alone 5
Yeah, this is a good one. I avoid wonderkid farming for sure. It's such an immersion breaker. I generally tend to avoid having a huge list of loan farmed players. I prefer at minimum sticking to players that'll make the bench straight away.
Using the no foreign limit mod, I tried to win the Eredivisie/CL with Feyenoord with Caribbean players only. Don’t ask me how it went. I wanna try to win with all Africans on a PL team next
Ha, that's an interesting gimmick. The African challenge seems cool. I reckon it should work out alright.
I always try to develop one or two academy players per season, plus another couple of nation players. E.g atm I'm doing an Aberdeen save, so my LB and Bench CB are from the academy, and my striker and bench AM are both Scottish.
Yeah, this is something I always like to bring. Youth players on the bench is a great practice. Anyone with good potential, I love to get game time. It's more effective than a loan imo.
It varies from save to save but a few go-tos: 1. Nation restrictions, playing as Wrexham but only allowing Welsh player signings (with the exception of academy newgens). 2. Not allowing myself to loan in players, especially in lower league saves. 3. Only allowing myself to sign players found by my scouts, no player search engine and no targeted scouting except for players that have played against me in matches. 4. This isn't really a restriction but I do saves in smaller nations, usually Finland, where my goal isn't necessarily to win the Champions League but to find, sign and develop as many young high potential Finnish players as possible and sell them off to bigger clubs with the goal of developing the national team (without controlling the national team). This is a very immersive way to play imo and it's not just about beating the match engine. Usually I pick the buyer more based on how much playing time and further development they get as opposed to how much money I'll make.
2. The no loans on a lower league save is an interesting handicap. Loans really do make so much difference. I exploit it hard on the current lower league save I have going. 3. This is a pretty big handicap too. I've been exploiting player search and trials so hard in that save. I guess it does trivialise things - in that save, there's a chance I'm getting double promoted. 4. This one seems like a cool save concept. I should try this with Australia. I love the idea of helping develop the nation. Making sure a transfer is actually good for a player is something I might do more in general - I get sad when I sell a player and they rot on the bench.
I don’t buy players from my own division unless they are transfer listed
I only really play in smaller nations, so they're mostly homegrown-related to keep from shorting myself in Europe once I get to the point where players are only really sticking around for three or four years before wanting out/getting sold. Backup players homegrown in nation, backup goalkeeper homegrown at club, etc. Nothing too far out there.
This is a healthy habit, I think. I'll introduce this one to my save too - a homegrown bias. Seems to fit United.
I only sign players that naturally appear on my scout reports. I also only sign players over 20 if they go straight into the first team. If they aren’t going straight in they need to be either trained in nation or trained at club when make it to the first team.
When I was playing in Finland I only signed players from the Scandinavia region.
This is more just a habit I've fallen into managing almsot exclusively smaller clubs outside of the top 7 leagues, but never ever spending more than 15-20 million on a player, and usually staying under 5 million, unless theyre like a once in a save talent. I am currently at a tycoon takeover celtic in my journeyman save and despite having 160 million in the transfer budget i still operate on a surplus every year making the tycoon basically useless 😭. I also keep a very tight wage structure for all of my teams, usually maxing out absolutely at 5 million per annum, 10 million if I'm in a top 5 league.
This is a great idea! I tend to be undisciplined with spending haha. I need to do better at turning down a player if their wage is unrealistic
No save scumming... Game is so much harder when you can't "correct" the injustices
I feel bad because I did this on my last save. Only once, but still. I still lost the game, but less so, and still dodged an injury.
As a general rule I don't sign players that are older than 23.
that's not much of a handicap tbh 🤣
Chelsea save. I set a restriction that I had to turn a 100 million profit in player sales every year until 2030 (which is when the amortization period for Boehly era transfers ends) and only buy U-25s. Was quite fun, I had to go budget hunting for elite young talent because the rest of the team was stacked with potential. There was a cheap workaround however as I would just sell Sterling/James/Chilwell for 80+ million to Saudi Arabia. By the time 2030 came, I had a 500 million transfer budget and nothing to spend it on as all the kids Boehly(and later me) bought were in their primes
Ooh, this is kind of what I've had in mind for this one. I like the idea of running at a profit. I've been running financially irresponsibly far too much, in previous saves. I love the idea of needing to be overall profitable. One of my goals with this save is to upgrade everything at the club - best facilities, best staff. Have you started requesting upgrades at your club? It could help. You could maximise almost everything.
I currently play with Alaves and can only sign basque and spanish players. And can"t sign a basque players from other basque clubs in first division. Just if they are on transfer list. Im in 28/29 season and i really love slow progress without south american wonderkids. Played once in conference league, three times in europa league and once in CL and slowly catching the gap to Real and Barca. Didnt win nothing yet 😂 And no save scumming.
Guys, I am trying a "players from nation only" save in Portugal and I am really confused how so many people find this fun. The vast majority of summers there is no-one to sign so you might as well holiday for 2 months. There just aren't enough players to consider. Isn't the scouting and finding regens half the fun? The only nation good regens that appear are from my rival clubs and they won't join ever. Every year my team assembled in the first season is getting older and older and apart from 2 or 3 kids from the youth team there won't be enough players from this nation to replace the starting 11. Outside of places like Spain/France/England/Germany where at least you can nab a lot of regens on youth-intake day I am not sure how to make such a save even remotely fun.
I’d like to imagine I’ve got a very strong youth policy. After my first season, I aim to give at least 1 u21 player a go in every continental match, 3 u21’s players an appearance (either starting or on the bench) in league games , and at least 7 in cup games (all of which excluding finals, key matches).
STRICT wage structures, limited transferfees based on competition rep and home-grown focused recruitment.
On next save I could put restriction called ironman that means no save scumming as game doesn't have ironman mode
In my Hartlepool save (club chosen fairly randomly), I can only sign Scandinavian players (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Icelandic). Club regens were okay to sign (or it would have been nearly impossible) but I would generally sell them for revenue. Very easy to sign good players in the national league as there are very few restrictions. Danish and Norwegian leagues are full of good young prospects who don't require particularly high salaries. Got difficult in the football league. Had to make good use of affiliate clubs and dual-nationality players. Ended up in the prem after about 10 seasons but went straight back down.
Tried to like an 'equality' save, wherein every player would earn the same wage. Gave up within a season when I realised I would rather have good players, but could be fun for someone better than me, if possible
I always play with Director of Football challenge and the following rules/restriction: - i'm responsible for training, tactics, match and first team coaching staff - DoF/Technical Director is responsible for all other backroom staff - DoF and Head Scout are responsible for scouting - all contract and transfer negotiations are handed to the DoF. I just confirm transfers because the AI sometimes does very weird stuff - i can just ask the DoF to hire players that are on the loan/transfer list or that my scouts found by themself. Or my DoF recommends to me. No imported shortlists and no searches for bargains or player in general that i know from other savegames You will still hire from the same pool of players over all savegames. Because good players are good players and your scouts will always find them. But it's very random when your scouts find them and often you'll find them when they aren't affordable anymore. It makes the game more realistic and you have to operate on a tighter budget even when having the same budget like when doing everything yourself. Because the AI can make good deals but of course doesn't know all the little tricks we human managers know.